Asian American wins and notes at the Academy Awards

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

ELIZABETH CHAI VASARTHELY & JIMMY CHIN.

Two Asian American directors won Oscars for their work for Free Solo, which won in the Best Feature Documentary category last night.

Behind every film is an army of technicians, artists and in the case of Free Solo, some daredevil cameramen for their shots of lex Honnold’s death-defying quest to perform a free solo (no harness or safety ropes) climb up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

Heading this army for Free Solo are co-directors lizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, two Asian Americans who dared to film the incredible feat. The first thing Vasarhelyi did was to thank "National Geographic" for hiring “women and people of color, they only help make the films better.”

Also nominated in the same category was Minding the Gap, the debut film from skateboarder Bing Liu.

* * *

Ruth Carter won Best Costume Design for her work for Black Panther, but she gave a shoutout to Anthony Francisco, a Filipino American for Marvel's visual development team. Francisco got some of the inspiration for the costume of the Dora Milaje, the elite women warriors in Wakanda, from the indigenous tribes of the Philippines and samurai armor.

Francisco credits Carter as  "the only costume designer I know that mentions the Visual Development team at Marvel often. She even mentioned me by name. I don’t blame the people that assume she’s a costume designer. That’s usually how it works anyways, but in this case, it was a little different.”

INSTAGRAM

Anthony Francisco and the costume worn by Wakanda's elite warriors in 'Black Panther.'

* * *

Bao won an Oscar for best animated short film. Director Domee Shi told The Chronicle ithat the touching 8-minute short is inspired by her own life growing up in Canada with Chinese parents."

"I'm an only child with Chinese parents, so I was very protected. I'd always been my mom's 'little dumpling,'" Shi told the Chronicle. "It was a challenge to put myself in my mom's shoes and try to understand things from her point of view, not just from the kid's perspective who's being smothered. That became the spark, to create a modern-day fairy tale with vibes of the Little Gingerbread Man (whose mother bakes him, only to have him run away), but do a Chinese version of it."

Director Domee Shi, left, and bao from the animated short of the same name.

* * *

The Oscar for Best Documentary Short went to Period. End of Sentence, a documentary that tackles the stigma around menstruation in rural India. The film is directed by 25-year-old Iranian American filmmakers Melissa Berton and Rayka Zehtabchi, who, upon receiving her statuette, said, "I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar!” 

“A period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education,” concluded Berton.

Producer Guneet Monga tweeted after her win: "We won! To every girl on earth, know that you are a goddess,"

The film was created by The Pad Project, an organization established by an inspired group of students at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton. The 26-minute film follows girls and women in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh and their experience with the installation of a pad machine in their village.

SCREEN CAPTURE

The filmmakers of 'Period. End of Sentence' accept their Academy Award.

* * *

The cast of Crazy Rich Asians looked fantastic as they represented and presented awards in various categories. On stage as presenters were Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh and Constance Wu.

Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet are pretty in pink.

Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) apparently is comfortable in his masculinity because he wore a pink tuxedo, to match his wife Lisa Bonet's gown.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Crazy Rich Asians passed over by Oscar; Asian American filmmakersr get nominations

WARNER BROTHERS

'A Star Is Born' Director Bradley Cooper discusses a shot with Oscar nominee Matthew Libatique.

UPDATED: 11:30 a.m., Jan 23 to include trailers.

TO THE DISAPPOINTMENT of the millions of fans of Crazy Rich Asians, the groundbreaking movie failed to garner a single nomination for the Academy Awards.

Despite its cultural significance and box office success, the movie featuring an all-Asian cast, was passed over in the Oscar announcement Tuesday (Jan. 22).

The overlook of one of the year's most successful and popular movies is not surprising. The Oscars typically don't look at romantic comedies as Oscar contenders because they don't usually have the hair-tearing, screaming or knock emotional gut-wrenching scenes or awe-inspiring special effects associated with Oscar nominees. Rom-coms are just for laughs seems to be the general attitude of Academy members. Apparently, the human comedy is just not Oscar level material.

But that apparent bias didn't affect members of the Screen Actors Guild which nominated CRA's actors in its Best Cast category, SAG's equivalent to the best picture Oscar; or the Foreign Press awards known as the Golden Globes which nominated Constance Wu for Best Actress in A Comedy, or the Producers' Guild Awards which put CRA in the Best Picture category.

Perhaps the most disappointing oversight was failing to recognize Michelle Yeoh's performance in CRA as the protective mother of Henry Golding's character. Many critics thought that Yeoh would get a nod in the Best Supporting Actress category for her nuanced (not resorting to stereotypes) performance as Eleanor Young. Like I said, she didn't tear her hair out, overly emote or or speak in a British accent (Singaporean accents don't count.) that seems to a favorite among this year's nominations.

Oh, well.

Perhaps this year's nominations speaks more about the still dominant influence of the Academy's traditional (older, white) membership. I used to think that every actor was a voting member of the Academy but since the #OscarsSoWhite debacle, diversifying Academy membership has been a primary goal. Despite an influx of new members, it is still surprising that a great number of younger and actors of color have not been invited to join the Academy.

Other nominations of interest for AAPI film fans:

• Filipino American director of photography, Matthew Libatique, was nominated for his work for A Star is Born.
• Bao, a Pixar product directed by Domine Shi, was nominated for Best Short Film. 
• Minding the Gap  by Bing Liu and Diane Quon was nominated for Best Documentary.
• Free Solo directed by Jimmy  Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi was also nominated for Best Documentary.
• Mirai, from Japan and directed by Mamoru Hosoda was nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Check out the trailers:

CORRECTION: Earlier versions of this post erroneously said the Crazy Rich Asians cast won the SAG award for best Ensemble Cast. The SAG awards will take place on Jan. 27.

_______________________________________________________________________________